Is your company a Champion or an Underachiever?

Two headlines caught my attention this morning. First was the “Data fraud that went on for five decades at Kobe Steel” and Second a story about Doctors in Kenya going on strike as one of their colleagues was suspended for operating the wrong patient's brain, Yes the brain. This got me thinking about a lot of the companies and where they stand on the intersection of Process and Culture.

If I mapped out the Process vs Culture 2x2, I see four type of companies. Champions, Underachievers, Greedy and Malevolent.

The Champions typically have best of both worlds, Excellent Processes and Well intentioned Culture. Lately I have seen a lot of companies that are very good at Process but have a culture with poor intentions. To name a few that have been in the news Volkswagen (Emission Testing), Wells Fargo (Fraudulent account openings) & now Kobe Steel (Fraudulent inspection reports).

Let us take a look at the examples that grabbed my attention this morning.

Kobe steel has been doing this for over 5 decades. If you have been consistently defrauding your customers, the processes must be really good and consistent, but the motivation and culture driving what they do on a daily basis has been simply wrong.

However with the example of Doctor operating the brain of a wrong patient, I can see this is more a process issue than intentions. The demands on the Surgeon to do many surgeries coupled with specialization that has removed the human touch has put a lot of burden on the process. The failure to understand the consequences of not having a process is rampant but not limited to the healthcare industry.

Would love to hear from you, where do you think your company stands today?